Should the U.S. enforce more explicit restrictions on monopolies, or can innovation and democracy alone mitigate the pervasive effects of monopoly power? A panel of historians and economists at the recent Stigler Center conference on concentration in America discussed the historical evolution of this debate.

In this installment of ProMarket’s interview series on concentration in America, Chicago Booth professor and former chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers Austan Goolsbee talks about market power. “We care about market power, not concentration. Industries where market power can harm consumers the most are the ones we should care the most about.”

In this installment of ProMarket’s interview series on concentration in America, Chicago Booth professor Steven Kaplan discusses the reasons for the rise in concentration. “Overall, the increases in concentration from technology and regulation are positive while the increase from rent seeking is a negative.”

In this installment of ProMarket’s new interview series on concentration in America, Chicago Booth professor emeritus Sam Peltzman shares some thoughts on concentration and antitrust policy. “It is hubris to believe that economists and antitrust officials can predict the future. Who remembers that free web browsers were once thought to be a dangerous threat to competition?”

A key distinction in economic viewpoints that goes oft-unnoticed is between pro-business and pro-market. A good bellwether to where someone stands on the pro-business/market continuum is his/her stance on antitrust policy: pro-business usually favors incumbents, while pro-market calls for aggressive antitrust enforcement to facilitate competition.

“I would not dispute that even a monopoly-ridden market would be preferable to any economic system trying to operate without any kind of a market. But given the prevalence or the danger of substantial intrusion of monopoly into the market, the logic of the laissez faire defense of the market against state-intervention collapses and there is called for instead, by its very logic, state-suppression or state-regulation of monopoly practices, which one may wish to call, as Henry Simons called it, an instance of “positive laissez faire” or, as I prefer, as an instance of deliberate departure from laissez faire.” Jacob Viner – The Intellectual History of Laissez Faire (1960)